The Preakness is only 1 3/16 miles, but its history takes way more twists than that. We’re coming off watching the Kentucky Derby, mixing up the signature Black Eyed Susan cocktail, and then digging into how the Preakness Stakes becomes a pillar of American thoroughbred racing and the most stressful checkpoint in the Triple Crown.

We walk through the origins of horse racing, then zoom in on the Preakness itself: where the name comes from, why the “first year” can be confusing, and how the race bounces around before it finally finds a stable identity at Pimlico Race Course. The early versions look nothing like today, including a period where it’s run as a handicap race with different weights assigned to horses, plus years where the race doesn’t run at all.

Then we get into what makes the Preakness the make-or-break race for a Kentucky Derby winner: the short two-week turnaround, the reality of fresh challengers entering the field, and why strategy and recovery can matter as much as speed. We also unpack the traditions that give the race its Maryland flavor, including the Black Eyed Susan blanket and the fun fact that the flowers on the winner aren’t actually in bloom in May.

And yes, we talk Secretariat. The 1973 Preakness timing controversy turns “human timers” into unlikely heroes, with video review decades later setting an official record. We close with modern news that could reshape the future: Pimlico’s reconstruction moving the 2026 Preakness to Laurel, and Churchill Downs Incorporated buying the intellectual property rights to the Preakness brand. Subscribe, share the show with a racing fan, and leave us a rating and review. What tradition or fact surprised you most?

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A man in late 1700s France can eat nonstop and still feel starving. Not “big appetite” starving, but a relentless, aggressive hunger that drives him from normal meals to rotten meat, garbage, and eventually things nobody wants to imagine swallowing. We’re Kate and Bradley, and we take you into the documented case of Tarrare, one of history’s most unsettling medical mysteries, pieced together from period reports and military hospital notes.

We follow Tarrare from rural childhood into the world of sideshows, where crowds pay to watch him devour baskets of apples in seconds and swallow inedible objects. The details get darker fast: live animals, a body that stays strangely thin, skin that hangs loose from stretching, heat that seems to radiate off him, and a smell so overpowering people can’t stand nearby. It’s grotesque, but it’s also a human story about illness, exploitation, and how little medicine could explain at the time.

Then the French Revolutionary Army turns curiosity into a plan: doctors feed him enormous meals, and the military uses him as a courier by sealing a message in a capsule that he swallows and later passes, creating a delivery method with no paper trail. That scheme ends with capture, torture, and dismissal, followed by chilling accusations back at the hospital, a missing toddler, and an ending that includes a reportedly horrific autopsy.

We also dig into modern explanations using today’s language: ghrelin and leptin (hunger and fullness hormones), thyroid disorders like hyperthyroidism, insulin and blood sugar regulation, and what “insatiable hunger” might mean medically. Subscribe for more strange history, share this with a friend who loves the bizarre, and please leave a rating and review so more listeners can find us.

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This website contains affiliate links. This means that if you click on a link and purchase a product, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. This helps support the running of this website and allows me to continue providing valuable content. Please note that I only recommend products and services that I believe in and have personally used or researched.

Mary Todd Lincoln’s name still gets tossed around as shorthand for “unstable,” but that label collapses the real story into a punchline. We dig into what her life actually looks like when you line up the facts: a politically engaged woman raised in comfort and expectations, a complicated marriage to a self-made lawyer with a very different emotional style, and a public role that turns every choice into a target.

We walk through the major losses that shape her world, starting with the death of her mother when Mary is only six, then the death of her son Eddie, and later the devastating White House tragedy of losing Willie during the Civil War. With the country in crisis, Mary faces suspicion over her Kentucky roots, constant criticism of her spending, and a press culture eager to frame grief as “crazy.” We talk about how spiritualism and séances, common in the 1800s, become one more weapon used to mock her instead of understanding her trauma.

The story doesn’t end at Ford’s Theatre. After Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, Mary’s mourning is forced into public view while she struggles with money, reputation, and isolation. We cover the wardrobe sale scandal, her fight for a government pension, and the heartbreaking rupture with her eldest son Robert Todd Lincoln, including the 1875 commitment that she later challenges and overturns. If you care about Civil War history, First Lady history, trauma, and how public narratives get manufactured, this one will stick with you.

Subscribe for more history with bite, share the episode with a friend who loves Lincoln-era stories, and leave us a rating and review. What do you think matters more in Mary’s legacy: her actions, or the way people reacted to her grief?

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This website contains affiliate links. This means that if you click on a link and purchase a product, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. This helps support the running of this website and allows me to continue providing valuable content. Please note that I only recommend products and services that I believe in and have personally used or researched.